Vegas In Some Detail

People I Done Seen

Shannon Elizabeth, John Juanda, Devilfish Ulliot, Phil Hellmuth (featured table participant who was knocked out early; this was announced to the room to raucous applause), Doyle Brunson (also knocked out on the first day and the recipient of similar-but-actually-totally-different applause), Jesus Ferguson (spent a large portion of the day sitting directly behind me; has 20k going into day 2), Annie Duke (as mentioned, sitting at my table on day 2), Ron Jeremy (also sitting at a table near mine; I lasted longer than him, ladies), Norman Chad (who actually railed our table for five or six hands and engaged in friendly banter with our table for the duration), that annoying guy with the picture of his kids from last year's main event, that musician guy from last year's main event (flirting with the scantily clad Milwaukee's Best Light girls, not to be confused with the scantily clad Paradise Poker girls, the scantily clad Party Poker girls, the scantily clad Poker Stars girls, or the scantily-clad-and-actually-engaging-in-lingerie-pillow-fights Bodog girls), and others who I've forgotten.

Methods Via Which To Emphasise The Size Of Your Cleavage I Done Seen

All of them.

Percentage Of Professionally Hot Girls Who Would Actually Be Attractive In Something That Covered, Say, 60% Of Their Bodies

Hovering at about 30%. But that 30% is impressive. Also: irritating. I think it's worse when an impossibly hot girl is showing obviously fake enthusiasm towards you for money instead of the usual scoffing. I pointedly ignore them.

The Weird Thing About Las Vegas

It seems that the more expensive something is the more people are willing to pay whatever fee is associated -- and in Vegas, everything has a fee. I am currently paying 10.99 for 24 hours of Internet access. And yet they will beer your ass like there's no tomorrow when you're playing poker.

Black Tape

Okay: .com branded apparel has been banned from the WSOP for the past month. It should come as no surprise to anyone at this point. Despite this, Poker Stars had to have people roving about with black tape to place over the ".com" on approximately 80% of its players.

The Rockstar Bus

As three Asian guys and I exit the front lobby of the hotel the valet asks us if we're headed to the Rio -- we're marked by the PartyPoker (.net, never .com) shirts we wear -- and says that for five bucks we can book passage on a quote-unquote Rockstar Bus. Rockstar Bus? Surely I misheard...

No, I did not. The only possible way to describe this bus decked out in leopard-print couches complete with strategically placed stripper poles is, indeed, a "Rockstar Bus," though presumbably real rockstars wouldn't have some Dave Matthews Band concert playing on the plasma TV at the rear and blasting through the kickin' sound system. This is the part where someone says something like "only in Las Vegas."

Action

I arrive approximately an hour early and wait outside the designated room. My nerves are such that I am surprised that my hands don't spasm uncontrollably. Eventually we're let into the room and I take my seat at approximately the same time as two older gentlemen who don't seem very intimidating. (In fact, one of them folds his big blind on the third hand and the other apparently folded a set of queens to minimal pressure, fearing a potential flush in a small pot. The latter eventually goes out when his KQ catches a king on the flop. He bets and gets raised; the raise gets a cold-caller. He calls and moves in on the turn and is shown a set... NH TY GG. I am at the very least better than these guys.)

I check each player who approaches the table; pleasingly, none of them are Phil Ivey. There is one guy who arrives late and flashes a gangster roll of impressive girth. He claims to be a 100-200 limit player (he charmingly refers to it as 1-2) and the roll is pretty convincing. The remainder of the table:

• Guy from around Sarnia in a PokerStars jersey who seems to enjoy folding good hands more than actually raking chips.
• Put-upon looking Asian guy who is not very good at all.
• Swedish dude.
• Extremely Jewish guy from Long Island who is almost maniacally agressive at times. He ends the day with almost 70k.
• A few others who made little impression.

Hand Of Note #1

The aforementioned old guy -- the one who folded his big blind -- raises in early position and gets either one or two callers. I call with K6 of clubs. Flop is KQ6 rainbow and it's salad days. I bet 600; old guy raises to 1600; I raise to 3600... old guy raises another 4k... and I can't call. I assume QQ or KQ. My stack is down to about 6k. Frowny pants.

HON #2

I make it 200 with KK in early position and get two callers; then Put-Upon Asian Guy makes it 1500. My stack is about 6300 and I go into the tank. Since PUAG doesn't seem like the kind of player who would make this sort of bet with aces -- it's a go-away-please bet -- I figure that I'm probably 4 to 1 over some sort of middle pair. I push. Callers fold, PUAG calls with QQ. Flop is three clubs; I have the K and he does not have the Q, reducing his outs from two to one. Lightning doesn't strike and I double through to about 13k. Table discussion after the PUAG is gone centers around the theory that he though I had substantially fewer chips.

Other than a few blind steals and some other flops seen that don't amount to much, this concludes level 1. I have around the 13k I had after the KK hand.

HON #3

Less notable for the hand itself -- I raise with JJ, Gangsta Limit Guy calls in the BB, then we check down 99A-Q-blank and I take a small pot -- than the uncomplimentary thing I say about jacks after the hand which gets me a ten minute penalty. The f-bomb is verboten at the world series, though you can use other forms of swearing all you want.

I sit out for ten minutes.

HON #4

Hello, nurse: first hand after the penalty is AA. I raise and get one caller -- New York Guy, who's in the small blind. Flop is 24J with two low spades. He bets, I raise, I get re-raised. Tank. I know this guy is very aggressive and capable of bluffing audaciously. He represents the set here. After some time I call. There's now more than 10k in this pot. We'll see what he does on the turn... or maybe we won't care: the beautiful ace of clubs is the turn. He bets out 4k, shove, and he folds. At this point I'm around 21k.

I don't get invovled in all that many big hands for a while. I do the occasional blind steal but more often I re-steal from Gangsta Limit Guy and Swedish Guy -- the former of whom raises a ton of pots, the latter of whom is just tight-weak. The most notable time is when I'm in the BB and GLG makes it 600 -- this was level three, then -- and gets a call from Swedish guy. I've got 97 of hearts and make it 2k. GLG looks disgusted and folds; Swedish guy does likewise, flipping over KQ. Another time I reraise GLG with AJ on the button and take down the pot when the flop is QQ-rag. I'm more than holding ground over this period of time. By the dinner break I have 26k in chips and the table chip leader.

Then bad things happen.

HON #5

I steal-raise with A8 off in third or fourth position. GLG calls from the BB. Flop is A62 all spades -- my 8 is a spade. Check to me, I bet 1k and get moved in on. Horrible error here: I have a hand that is good but despises a reraise. Like the JJ hand I should just play this for showdown value. Instead I have 6300 to me in a pot that's about 4k in size. I figure this is either a mid-pocket pair with a spade, in which case I'm ahead, or a set of sixes or twos, in which case I'm behind but but not dead... the thought that I've got another ace with a bigger spade kicker does not occur tome and should have swung my decision to fold. I do call, though, and am shown trip sixes. Turn is the ten of spades -- hurrah -- river is the ten of hearts -- curses. This live stuff is just as rigged as online play. Down to about 18k.

I resume the good play, though, and chip away at the stacks of others. One typical hand:

HON #6

Folded to me in the SB. The weak old guy who was shown a set of twos hasn't picked up his fateful KQ yet and is in the BB. I raise with 9-6 off. Flop is Q94 all hearts -- I have nary a one -- I bet 800 and get min-raised. A danger sign from a good player but I think this means he caught a piece but is looking to get away from it, especially when he re-checks his cards... no flush for this guy. I repop to 4k and he goes away, asking if I had a Q. I tell him low hearts.

By the time we've gotten to the final break of the night I am back where I was before the A8 hand at 25 or 26k.

HON #7

Again a steal raise from mid position with A7 -- memo to self, stop freakin' doing this -- is called by NY Guy. Flop is rags not including a seven. I check and then raise his bet. He says "I'll just call" and does so. flop is another low rag, giving me a gutshot, and I bet out 8k only to get raised all in. I drop it. Should have quit after the flop call, or better yet not gone after one of the better players on the table out of position. I'm down to 10k after all that.

The remainder of the night I'm pretty much in push-fold mode. I win a small hand in the BB when I call the SB's raise and then bet out a straight draw I made with QJ. I push all in with a better and a caller with 76off and am not called. I come over a standard opening bet with AK and am not called by AQ. By the time we're done I have 15k.

I'm Not Sure What To File This Under

PUAG after sadly contemplating his dwindling stack: "I wish I had a girlfriend so I could beat her tonight." I think "disappointing item that proves your sense of humor is not nearly as sophisticated as you think it is."

I play Tuesday.

I plan on sleeping until then.

I Live

Due to a hilarious naivety in re: the amount of time I'd have to do things other than play poker and the general difficulty of navigating the vast sea of humanity that was day 1B of the WSOP updates were obviously not forthcoming. We finished at around 6 or 7 AM EST.

In brief: I live but have only increased my stack from 10k to 15k. At one point it was around 26k but I got cute bluffing and lost a big chunk. No one of note was at my table -- though a few players were clearly very good -- though Ron Jeremy sat at the one next to me. He busted out around 10. Hellmuth, Brunson, Mizrachi, and many others are gone. Annie Duke, however, is not. She's sitting three to my left on my table for Tuesday.

More detail later.

Unverified Voracity: Dragon Up Edition

All in one place. Bevo Sports has collected the various preseason top 25s in one large table for your viewing convenience.

Offensive line fears: assuaged. I remember the days of yore when you would come home from class with an hour to kill and watch something along the lines of "Bear In The Big Blue House" because, hey, it was college and you were going to live forever. Something similar must have happened in the life of the reader who notified me of the existence of Disney's "American Dragon":

Dragon up! Jake Long is your average 13-year-old kid who just happens to be a powerful and magical dragon! While learning to master his mad dragon skills (with the help of Grandpa and Fu Dog), it's Jake's destiny to protect all the magical creatures in New York from some seriously bad dudes.

(If you're wondering, Fu Dog is "a 600-year-old talking dog, and Jake's official animal guardian.") If you go to the character page and mouse over Jake you get to hear him exclaim "Y'all see me represent!" If you're thinking to yourself "boy, I bet MGoBlog pile-drives 'Dragon Up!' and 'Y'all see me represent' into the ground over the next sixth months," you know me all too well. As said reader -- name unspecified by probably somethng along the lines of "N---- Acasto" -- put it:

How can analysts say that our offensive line is questionable this season when our left tackle is a skateboarding, crime-fighting, fire-breathing mythical creature?

How indeed.

Projected series duration: six episodes. In the meantime, anyone need some IM icons?



Projected league duration: six games. You've probably heard about this minor-league NFL thing that will play on the campuses of collegiate teams by now. I was torn on whether the idea is a good one or not: I'd probably go see Marquise Walker play but not Cato June (what's that you say, Cato June is a pro-bowl NFL linebacker? Pshaw), but when SMQB dubbed the thing "the Hula Bowl League" that clarified things. Do I watch the Hula Bowl? No. Does it take ten seconds after hearing the words "Hula Bowl" to remember what, in fact, the Hula Bowl is? Yes.

A Notre Dame preview... is not coming from me, as I still have five Big Ten teams and Indiana (ha!) to go. Lo siento. Maize 'n' Brew's opponent-by-opponent preview has just reached ND if you need to know all about the Irish.

SMQB has previewed Penn State and projected 7-5; annoyed PSU fans can now storm over there.

Etc.: EDSBS's series on offensive line play continues; UNO hockey is sliding towards the red (via WCH).

Phil Hellmuth: prepare to meet the rail. Until Saturday.

Viva Con Dios

So, right: I board a plane bound for Las Vegas tomorrow. Saturday I play in the WSOP. Woodson willing I will continue on from there.

You and your oversized head are going
down.

I wouldn't expect much (anything) tomorrow. I may relates some first-day impressions as I plan to railbird portions of the first day and get in some live PLO. Saturday I'll update progress and try to capture the overall gist of the thing in the breaks provided me. If I'm still in I'll do likewise until the inevitable bust occurs. Realistically, I'll be happy if I make the second day or bust Bill Simmons. If and when the Simmons bust happens I promise to scream "HA! Where's your Basketball Jesus now?"

Anyone who happens to be in Vegas and wants to get a drink or something, shoot me an email. I could not convince any of my weak-ass friends to come along.

Voracity coming up in an hour or two, then it's plane time.

And, wow, that picture of Simmons is really big. It's very, very big. At least it's very tall compared to its width and thus doesn't push the text down as much as one might expect. This screws with the look of the page and therefore requires additional text that, though it may not say much of anything, does have the benefit of preventing the goofy visage of Simmons from jutting into the post below it. All entirely hypothetical, of course.

Elite 11 UPDATE!

Any concerns readers might have about Ryan Mallet's Elite 11 performances should begone. Mallet is camp champion, having defeated Logan Gray, Tyrod Taylor, and counselor Jordan Palmer to win the... er... "2006 Elite 11 EA SPORTS NCAA 2007 tournament title". No doubt this portends great things for the young man, even if he did play with Florida State as his team of choice.

Of note are Mallet's constant trash talking and late heroics against Ohio State:

Taylor and Mallett squared off for the right to face Palmer in the tournament finals, and after battling through a scoreless first quarter before Mallett scored on an Xavier Lee (Florida State) touchdown pass with 1:28 left in the half. Taylor, boosted perhaps by his personal cheerleader Rontrell Bailey, battled through Mallett's constant chatter and mounted a drive at the end of the first half, but was stopped on the one-yard line with seven seconds left and time expired as Taylor had already used his three timeouts.

Taylor took the second half kickoff and needed little time to makeup for the mistake at the end of the first half, as a Troy Smith to Ted Ginn 77-yard touchdown pass 14 seconds into the third quarter tied the score. The scoring continued in the quarter, as Mallett answered with a drive but Taylor's big play ability came out again with another 65-yard Troy Smith TD pass to knot it at 14 at the end of three.

Taylor stopped Mallett on downs early in the fourth quarter, but after a Taylor turnover Mallett converted a fourth down and moved deep and worked the clock to take a 17-14 lead with one second left on a 20-yard field goal, advancing to the finals to face off against Palmer.

The man knows how to boringly grind out a game: he is a perfect fit for the Michigan offense. Those interested in Mallet thanking God for his thumbs can see the teary acceptance speech here.

Unverified Voracity: Bird Of Frank Thomas Edition

The Elite 11 quarterback camp is underway and Ryan Mallet is performing to mixed reviews. You can take the breathless opening paragraph from GBW at face value...

Once again GBW managed to get a bird's eye view of the Elite 11 goings-on. This is our 5th straight camp. There is only one Superstar at the camp ... the separation between this ONE ELITE QB and the others is so great as to make it a little hard to report upon ...

...but I would try to keep your face well removed from the vicinity of such a... vigorous endorsement. Somehow I find this random poster from an obscure Internets outpost more credible:

1. It was Ryan then everybody else
2. Kid grows each time I see him
3. Footwork will not be an issue
4. Arm is a cannon and he is "on"

Maybe it's the laconic, unexcited prose that engenders trust. Maybe it's the lack of implied fellatio. Who knows?

Unfortunately for the visions of crystal footballs dancing around in our heads, Ryan finished 17th of 18 (the "counselors" throw as well) in the accuracy competition. This is obviously no big deal for the following reasons:

• It's one hackneyed drill at a camp.
• He beat someone.
• If Clausen wasn't such a big chicken that he dodged the camp entirely he would have finished last.
• Because I say so.

The most encouraging bit of unconfirmed Internet speculation comes from RCMB poster tritongreen, who knows a couple of people in charge of the camp and announced the selection of Nichol to the board a week before it happened. That may have been a fairly obvious prediction, but he also revealed that Stanton would be a counselor, which he is. tritongreen would like to see Ann Arbor burn to the ground. Despite that, he says this:

Mallett is the 2nd best QB at the camp behind the kid going to Florida. [This is probably a typo and means the "kid from Florida," Texas-bound John Brantley -ed]They love him. Monster arm, great footwork and other intangibles. Michigan is getting a very good QB.

Nichol is very average. Please know that this means very average for being one of the best 11 in the country so no one get the noose out yet, but dont expect Smoker or Stanton type of quality the next 4 years.

Good news....Stanton is the best counselor out there.

As always, take it FWIW.

Wither Mike Croel? This Slate article on the demise of the baseball (/football /hockey /basketball) card touched a nerve with me, especially because I've just moved all my crap from one place to another. There's always a moment when you move when you stumble across stuff you forgot you had: for me it was the dingy old backgammon set that encased the most precious treasures the twelve-year-old version of myself owned. Opening up the case -- something I've just done for the first time in years -- is an interesting look back into a younger version of myself.

Card collecting was weird combination of sentimentality with ruthless economics, so the things that ended up in the case reflect both my personal preferences and what I no doubt thought was a keen financial acumen that would net a cool 20 grand sometime down the road. The former explains the dual Dikembe Mutumbo rookies (recently imported from Colorado, I was still fond of the Nuggets and Broncos -- the Rockies and Avs did not exist yet). The latter explains the David Robinson rookie as well as the four or five cards displaying an oversized human being that eventually resolves itself into a version of Shaq that's too small and impossibly huge all at the same time.

Also of note:

• The famous -- at least amongst my circle of preteen friends -- card featuring Frank Thomas subtly giving the bird to the cameraman.
• A Shawn Kemp rookie card even less recognizable than the Shaq versions.
• A panoply of Lindros cards... thanks for nothing, Eric! You and your stupid concussions cost me some "clams" or "bones" or whatever you people call them! Don't get me started on your stupid "knee injury," Pavel Bure!
• A gold-embossed card featuring the infamous Todd Van Poppel, he of the infinite promise and ERA.
• At least the reasoning for having Van Poppel in there is sound, as he was one of the most highly touted prospects of my collecting era. But why in God's name do I have two-count-'em-two Felix Jose rookie cards? Who the hell is Felix Jose?
• I do know who Joe Juneau is, but there's still no excuse for his rookie card in this case.
• Mark McGuire used to be very very tiny.
• Boy, Kid Brian was in for some disillusionments: there are four or five different Barry Sanders cards and three featuring Chris Webber decked out in maize and blue. Plus, Mike Croel would never repeat the form of his rookie season with the Broncos.
• Think I could wrangle a column on Page 2 in exchange for a Larry Bird '92 Dream Team card?
• I think I have to go burn this Alonzo Mourning "Future Heroes" card.
• I have an entire hologram set of the '92 award winners, featuring the following players: Michael Jordan (points, MVP), David Robinson (blocks, DPOY), John Stockton (assists, steals), Larry Johnson (ROY), Dennis Rodman (rebounds) aaaaaaaaaaand... the immortal Detlef Schrempf!

Apparently I could sell these things for a total of eight dollars. I should have got more Dikembe Mutumbo rookies.

It's official: blog make newspaper crazy. The News and Free Press are seriously weirding me out, man. First: Angelique Chengelis apparently has this column-ish thing called "The Buzz" wherein she writes chatty blurbs on relevant news. The overall effect is freakin' creepy:

He absolutely knows Michigan is behind in terms of a practice facility for both basketball programs. Recruits need to look no further than neighboring Michigan State to see the type of top-notch facilities of which Michigan is absolutely worthy.

...

Those who like motor sports have their biases.

I have mine.

Open-wheel racing on a high-speed oval is racing at its purest -- breath-taking, dangerous, and quite frankly, awesome.

Is it just me, or does this seem like the sort of thing an editor bestowed upon the plebes in an attempt to get back all those readers distracted by the shiny Internets? That's bad, but the News, as per usual when it comes to miraculously bad ideas, has nothing on the Free Press. You probably saw this cited on Deadspin, but if you didn't it must be brought to your attention so we can collectively beat it to death. It is a liveblog of the British Open. In a newspaper. Apparently written by a man who digs Carrot Top. Argh:

Free Press golf writer Carlos Monarrez recaps the British Open third round from the best seat of all -- his couch.

7 a.m. -- TNT's coverage begins. Yeah, right, like a sports writer is really going to be awake at 7 a.m. Thank God for TiVo.

7:02 -- Angelina Jolie and I are riding unicorns over a sea of strawberry marshmallows.

9:04 -- Dang it, I'm awake! See you tonight, Angelina. ABC is starting its third-round recap with the usual overwrought soundtrack. Presidential inaugurations don't get the kind of fanfare golf majors get from networks.

9:05 -- A replay of John Senden's ace on the 13th hole. Who says 13 is unlucky?

Obviously this newspaper/blogwar thing has gotten out of hand. We need some sort of ceasefire, a line drawn in the sand. (Across this line you do not... also, Dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature, etc.)

How about this: you leave the liveblogs, jokes, statistical analysis, and devastating good looks to us. We'll stop pretending we're real journalists and blathering on about long tails and new media and how useless y'all are. This way no one gets hurt.

The Autolink. Badger Sports brings the following delicious passage from an article on the UW university system to the world's attention:

The UW System administration saw UW-Milwaukee, with its doctoral status, large size and urban setting, as a place to address the needs of students rejected by UW-Madison. It envisioned turning UW-Milwaukee into a Wisconsin version of Michigan State University or the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Please forward this to everyone you know who goes or went to State. Multiple times. If this is an attempt to join the BlogPoll via sucking up, it's working.

Etc.: Random gambly-type Big Ten preview projects Michigan as champions (via Badger Sports); EDSBS caption contest (warning: not suitable for basically everyone); The 614 starts in with the OSU preview, again references this "two game season" thing which you'd better believe I am preparing to throw in the face of anyone who even so much of thinks of mentioning it (lo, I am wroth and my vengance will be Internet sarcasm).

Iowa Preview: Show Me Your Tates

The Story

Last year Iowa was the only team in the conference that could give Michigan a run for its money when it came to snakebites. A 23-3 loss to ISU was a comedy of errors performed mostly with Tate on the bench; replacment Jason Manson went 10/31. The loss to Michigan -- suffered without Ed Hinkel -- was full of uncharacteristic drops, penalties, and execution errors. Iowa carried the balance of the play and likely would have won that game seven of ten times if given the opportunity. The Northwestern and Florida games made the word "onside" a guaranteed bar fight in Des Moines. Only a vengeful stomping at the hands of OSU stands out as a game Iowa really deserved to lose.

This was a reversion to the mean -- or possibly past it -- after Iowa's charmed 2004, which was full of fortituous bounces on turnovers of all kinds. As a result, Kirk Ferentz's inexorable march to godhood took a bit of a siesta last year as Iowa stumbled to a 7-5 record. Sportswriters, always projecting things to be just like they were last year, have noticed.

The general consensus is Iowa's 2005 was something more than a blip. The Hawkeyes are projected to return to their newly familiar stomping grounds in the top 25, but if Stewart Mandel represents conventional wisdom at its coventional-est it appears the sportswriters of America are focusing more on 7-5 than the Tates: he has them #18. Athlon says #16. Even all-seeing, all-gambling Argus Phil Steele places Iowa but #15. Last year I argued that Iowa was overrated at number eight as journos focused more on Iowa's record than the fortune it had taken to get them there. This year they've multiplied that mistake by negative one.

No headliners remain on the Iowa defense after two years in which graduation has taken Matt Roth, Jonathan Babineaux, Abdul Hodge, and Chad Greenway to the NFL, but the Hawkeyes have star power on the other side of the ball in Drew Tate (the flingingest quarterback this side of the Pecos), Albert Young, and Albert Young's cadaverous ACL. The offensive line is either experienced or OMG shirtless. The defensive line looks poised to resume the terror of the Roth-Babineaux days. The defensive back seven? Well, you can't have everything. There are indeed ominous holes at corner and linebacker.

Despite that, viewers should be prepared for a faceful of Tate this year.

Offense

Last Year: Like everyone else in the Big Ten, Iowa had an excellent offense: 22nd nationally, 27th in passing and 34th in rushing. Also like everyone else in the Big Ten, it's hard to tell whether or not this was more a product of the offense or the defenses they faced, especially because Iowa missed Penn State.

Quarterback

Rating: 5. Drew Tate is one of the best quarterbacks in the country no matter your preferred metric. He has the numbers: two straight years with around 2800 yards passing, a completion percentage hovering around 62 percent, and 22 touchdowns to only 7 interceptions last year. He has the accolades: two years on the All Big Ten teams. And for those who like talking in vague generalities, he is the very avatar of "heart" or "moxie" or whatever you people call it.

The UFR from last year's Iowa game is downright effusive:

Great galloping gravy! Remember the breakdown of positive/negative downfield plays I did for the PSU game? Henne had 14 positive to 16 negative. Take away two TE screens, two dumpoffs to Young on third and long, and four Solomon stop routes (to play this conservatively) and Tate had 23 positive to 7 negative, and that's being super harsh on the "Inaccurate" category, which holds two bombs and the third down comeback route in OT that glanced off Solomon's fingertips.

It's not fair to hold Henne to that standard--it probably isn't fair to hold Tate to that standard, that was one of the finest quarterbacked games I've seen, like, ever--but that's kind of mindboggling. Seriously, I think Tate made a total of three bad plays (holding the ball too long on one sack, fumbling a snap, and letting Woods bat a ball down on the waggle easily). That says a lot about Tate and a lot about how far away from him Henne has been this year.

It was only a series of tiny miracles (penalties, sacks, and Iowa receiving screwups) that prevented the Hawkeyes from running up 35 points on Michigan that day. That game perfectly encapsulates what will happen if you let Tate sit comfortably in the pocket: he will kill you on laser-accurate throws long, short, and in-between.

The backup situation is dire. Manson is a senior who Iowa will try to avoid at all costs and the next quarterback on the depth chart is redshirt freshman Jake Christensen. Christensen was a touted recruit a couple years ago but an awful showing in the Army All-American game had many wondering whether his presence there was less because of his talent and more due to the tendency of Tom Lemming (in his last year of picking the rosters for the game) to wildly overrate players from Illinois even more than players considering Notre Dame. He might be okay down the road, but if pressed into service this year throats will constrict across the state.

Running Backs

Rating: 4. Albert Young emerged from the vast morass of Iowa running backs with torn ACLs to crush opponents on his way to 1334 yards and plenty of hype, but his two games against actual run defenses sound a caution: he totaled 23 carries and 59 yards against Ohio State and Florida. There are many great backs who would have struggled to do better against those defenses, but those numbers indicate that without a proper hole to burst into Young is not a Fred Russell capable of materializing yards from seemingly nothing.

However, he is capable of taking those holes and ruthlessly exploiting them. Against Michigan Young was impressive, slashing through the MasseyGap (TM) time and again with decisive cuts and bursting past Michigan's oft-befuddled outside linebackers en route to 153 yards. He should do very well again this year behind an ornery offensive line stocked with what seems like six different guards.

Wide Receivers & Tight Ends

Rating: 3. Clinton Solomon, Ed Hinkel, and Matt Melloy depart. Left behind are junior Herb Grigbsy's 25 catches, Brobdingnagian tight end Scott Chandler, and nothing else resembling experience. Senior Calvin Davis is projected to join Grigsby in the starting lineup but has struggled with injuries over the past two years and had only eight catches in '05. In general, MGoBlog is skeptical of journeyman seniors, especially at positions that see a lot of rotation, so it would be wise to examine Iowa's other options. Redshirt freshman Trey Stross is distinctly Caucasian and thus is guaranteed to be Iowa's annual Inexplicably Great White Receiver at some point in his career. It also helps that Stross displayed velvet hands and great leaping ability in high school. Another player to keep an eye out for: freshman James Cleveland, an early enrollee who lit up the spring game.

Fee fi fo fum.

The inexperience at wide receiver will be offset by the talent at tight end. Iowa loves the one-back, two-tight end ace sets I can never get to work in NCAA and has the personnel to threaten run or pass out of them. Chandler is fairly ponderous but giant and a good receiver. His 47 catches led Iowa a year ago. Second-stringer Anthony Moeaki, a highly touted recruit, played in every game as a freshman, catching eight passes. He will see plenty of time and two or three dozen catches by the end of the year.

Offensive Line

Rating: 4. There's more instability here than one might initially assume there would be with three returning starters, as Iowa can't seem to decide where anyone should play on the line. Right tackle Marshall Yanda started all last season but started out at left guard. Right guard Mike Elgin had a full year of starting at that position in '05 but was the starting center the year before. But they have nothing on senior Mike Jones, who could release a hit single titled Where is Mike Jones? The answer last year was, variously, "left tackle," "right tackle," and "left guard." This year -- at least for now -- he's the right tackle.

So those guys have a ton of experience if a fairly uncertain notion of where, exactly, they're supposed to line up before each play. Jones is the most talented, having burst into the starting lineup as a true freshman. He finds himself a preseason All Big Ten pick by The Sporting News (TSN, understandably confused, named him the fifth best guard in the country), Lindy's, and Blue Ribbon. Yanda and Elgin are both somewhere between competent to good. But there is the niggling issue of center and, oh, left tackle.

Those positions will be filled by two touted members of Iowa's monster 2004 recruiting class. Redshirt freshman Rafael Eubanks, a consensus four-star ranked the #13 offensive lineman by Scout and the #5 guard by Rivals, emerged as the starting center in the spring. True sophomore Dace Richardson is projected to start at left tackle. Richardson was even more touted than Eubanks and was clearly being groomed for the role the instant he stepped on campus, as Iowa chose to forgo his redshirt year in favor of spot plays in most of their games. A large portion of the Hawkeye's success this year relies upon how effective last year's crash course as a collegiate lineman was.

Defense

Last Year: Excellent against the run, bad against the pass. Iowa finished 22nd nationally in run defense and had two standout performances against Minnesota, who managed 129 yards as a team, and Wisconsin, who got all of 12. Possibly because of Iowa's tendency to crush tailback like bug, teams went to the air against the Hawkeyes and more often than not found success: Iowa was but 77th in pass defense efficiency and 96th in terms of yardage.

Defensive Line

Rating: 4. This was supposed to be a disaster zone after the loss of the entire '04 line. Freshmen and sophomores were to be thrust into the uncaring maw of the Big Ten and swallowed whole. This did not so much happen. There was certainly a dropoff -- let us remember that messrs Roth and Babineaux combined for 40 TFL a year ago -- but all told the defensive line did more than just survive.

Junior defensive ends Ken Iwebema and Bryan Mattison were both disruptive forces as sophomores, combining for 19.5 TFL and 11 sacks. Iwebema found his way on the the media's selections for first team All Big Ten. While that may say more about the media than Iwebema in a year that featured Tamba Hali, Lamarr Woodley, and Mike Kudla, it does indicate his impressive talent.

The defensive tackles were also fairly competent despite being undersized. Then-freshmen Matt Kroul and Mitch King held down the starting jobs all year and were not utterly destroyed. King was even kind of good at times with 10 TFLs. One does not hold Minnesota and Wisconsin's run games down with linebackers alone. Kroul and King kept Hodge and Greenway free all year.

A repeat of last year's performance will not be enough for the defensive line, however. Minus Hodge and Greenway and with shaky cornerbacks the line will have get more pressure on the quarterback against tough opponents than the did a year ago, when Iowa had one three yard sack against OSU and none against Michigan. If that happens again this year games against good opponents will dissolve into shootouts that Iowa would like to avoid.

Linebackers

Rating: 3. The Big Ten wishes Abdul Hodge and Chad Greenway all the luck in the world in the NFL and encourages them to never, ever return. Replacing the two departed stars are EDSBS/SMQB All-Name Team candidates Mike Klinkenborg ("Der resistance is der futile, jah") and Mike Humpel (hur hur hur), both juniors who saw sporadic action a year ago. The functional Edmond Miles returns to start alongside the newcomers.

My flimsy excuse for posting this picture: Edmond Miles is the Hawkeye on the
right. Hey, blame Google.

Much like last year's defensive line, there must be a dropoff from Hodge and Greenway to Klinkenborg and Humpel. The n00bs are unlikely to average thirteen tackles a game and even more unlikely to cause Pavlovian salivation amongst NFL GMs, but unlike last year's defensive line the new linebackers have cut their teeth against the Big Ten and shown themselves at least decent. Both players are getting raves from the coaches for being intelligent players ready to step in and not screw things up entirely, and I believe them since this is Kirk Ferentz we're talking about.

Not screwing stuff up is a good baseline, but it does shift more pressure onto Miles and the defensive line to make the plays that stop drives. Miles was no wallflower a year ago, hitting double digits in TFLs, and is a candidate to break out now that Iowa is clearly in need of another thumping badass. The linebackers won't be a liability.

Defensive Backs

Rating: 2. Iowa may not miss longtime starters Antwan Allen and Jovon Johnson as much as you might expect. Iowa's pass defense wasn't that good with them: 96th in the country in yardage terms and 77th in efficiency. Some of that is probably attributable to a lack of quarterback pressure -- 2.1 sacks per game placed Iowa 68th nationally -- but most of the blame has to rest with the secondary.

In retrospect Johnson's placement on the All Big Ten first team seems to be more a product of longevity than quality: you started for three years on one of the Big Ten's better teams, so we assume you're good. For further reference see Lentz, Matt. Allen was only afforded honorable mention status and neither was drafted. So the dropoff from the duo to juniors Adam Shada and Charles Godfrey may not be great, but given the secondary's performance a year ago Iowa will want to shoot higher than mere maintenance.

I'm from Nebraska.

Better than maintenance may be hard to achieve, however. Adam Shada... well... is from Nebraska, if you know what I mean. He would have to buck an awful lot of history for a guy from Nebraska to become a standout corner on the collegiate level, especially as an unheralded recruit. Many cite his three interceptions from a year ago as reason to believe in his ability, but interceptions are usually fluky events and should not be relied upon for projection. Meanwhile, Godfrey was bouncing to and from safety as recently as last year and seems to have moved to corner because Iowa has no alternatives. It is always, always, always a bad sign when a player goes from backup safety to starting corner over the course of one offseason. Mediocrity here would be great.

Safety is more secure. Miguel Merrick and Marcus Paschal are both experienced seniors able in run support. Neither has the sort of range or playmaking ability you'd like in the ideal safety, but they're safe players who don't miss many tackles or assignments.

Special Teams

Kickers & Coverage

Rating: 5. Iowa and Ohio State must have a factory somewhere: Kaeding-replacment Kyle Schlicher was 17 of 21 a year ago and is one of the favorites for the Groza award this year. He's the best in the league.

Punter Andy Fenstermaker is an analogue of Michigan's Ross Ryan: the punts he gets off are often ugly, short ducks (84th in gross average), but they're difficult to return and thus the team's net numbers are acceptable (50th).

Since kickers are so much more important than punters and Fenstermaker is okay in net punting, the precious five is bestowed.

Schedule

Non-Conference: I-AA snackycake Montana, a decent MAC foe in Northern Illinois, and two low-level BCS teams in Syracuse and Iowa State. Respectable-ish, though the biggest threat may well be Garrett Wolfe and company the week after the Hawkeyes' trip to Michigan.

Conference: Michigan State and Penn State are absent from the schedule, which is a small net benefit. More important is the timing of the Ohio State game, which is a night game at home immediately after a virtual bye against Illinois. OSU, meanwhile, will be coming off the Penn State grudge match. That game's homefield advantage may be worth five or six points.

Compounding the scheduling goodness is this fierce slate of away games:

• Illinois
• Indiana
• Michigan
• Minnesota

The trip to Ann Arbor is the only thing resembling an actual crowd Iowa will face all year, and Michigan Stadium is only mildly intimidating minus the winged helmets that dwell within.

We're Sure About

Tate. He's the closest thing to Drew Brees since Drew Brees.

We Have An Idea About

The Defensive Line. What should have been a painful year of learning was instead fairly competent all around. All four starters return; Ferentz and Norm Parker have a proven track record of building terrifying linemen out of whole cloth; watch the eff out.

The Offensive Line Aside From Dace Richardson. A ton of experience save for center Eubanks, but he should be okay as a VHT in a position that's not all that demanding. Everyone else is going to be good.

We Have No Clue About

Dace Richardson. We do have some idea: VHT recruit under the Ferentz regime, but Richardson's performance very well could mean the difference between Drew Tate, Iowa Legend and Drew Tate, Damn Good But Frustrating. If Richardson is wobbly at some point and costs Iowa a game it could cost Iowa much more than that.

Cornerback. Even though it's been theorized that Jovon Johnson and Antwan Allen weren't really all that good, Iowa isn't exactly bursting at the seams with candidates to replace them.

An Embarassing Prediction, No Doubt

Best Case

Given the schedule and the talent the Hawkeyes have, a run to the national championship game is not out of the question. There's not a team on the schedule obviously better than Iowa and everyone remotely dangerous save Michigan must travel to Kinnick. 12-0 could happen. It wouldn't even be that surprising.

Worst Case

Maybe the run defense disintegrates without Greenway and Hodge, but I doubt it. If it does then some wonky corners could make the Iowa defense eminently perforable again. Throw in a lot of drops from the wide receivers, the complete implosion of Richardson, and a lot of bad luck... and Iowa's still very good with a favorable schedule. 9-3.

Final Verdict

Iowa was better than its record a year ago and returns the building blocks of a potentially great team in Tate, Young, and the defensive line. Replacing the wide receivers and linebackers will be a chore and some corners must turn up, but the tight ends should reduce the WR burden, the safeties should to likewise for the LBs, and the corners will probably get help from a ravenous defensive line.

As previously discussed, the schedule is a dream. Visits to Syracuse, Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota all promise to feature more Iowa fans than opposition ones. The nonconference schedule is managable without being embarassing. The Hawkeyes miss two potentially dangerous teams in MSU and PSU. The only downers are a trip to Michigan and the shame that the national championship game is in Arizona instead of New Orleans, which prevents what would have been a beautiful joke about Tates and beads.

Wins: Montana, @ Syracuse, @ Illinois, @Indiana, Northwestern
Probable Wins: Iowa State, Purdue, Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, @ Minnesota, OSU
Tossups: @ Michigan
Probable Losses: None
No Chance: None

Iowa gets OSU in the most favorable spot possible and catches the Buckeyes early in the season when their defense still figures to be breast-feeding. Iowa wins that game, loses to either Michigan or one of the "probable wins" category, and coasts to the Rose Bowl at 11-1.

Unverified Voracity: Apocalypse Edition

These words are not minced. Not even chopped. Bill Martin on Crisler Arena:

"Our basketball coaches are struggling with a second-rate facility,'' Martin said. "It's in dire need of upgrading.''

Yow. Ammunition for the baskeball facilities wars, no doubt, but possibly just empty talk given the vast array of athletic department construction already planned for the next few years. Lining up donors for basketball has proven much more difficult than for football or even baseball, which will have a new stadium this year.

What? Mattias Askew is in the NFL? Sure, sure, he just got tasered because he didn't want to move his car but the real question is: Mattias Askew is in the NFL? A player from one of John L. Smith's defenses is currently being paid by a professional football team?

(Via Deadspin)

The Apocalypse: coming. The first sign was the Whitlock column in which he eviscerated Scoop Jackson. The second: Askew. The third: College Football News giving a shiv to Notre Dame, ranking them 18th and pointing out those uncomfortable facts about the pass rush, secondary, and last year's strength of schedule. Personally, I think 18th is flashily contrarian -- I'll probably rank them around 8 or 10 in the preseason BlogPoll -- but credit must be given to CFN for doing something other than tongue-bathing enormously fat head coach Charlie Weis. (via College Footblog)

Etc: Ty Law is a Chief.

The Most Loathsome People In Sports: 31-40

31-40: The Bothersome

40. Jason Whitlock

Note: this was written before Whitlock's column in which he A) called Scoop Jackson's inane "1.3 percent" piece "so juvenile and flawed" that he "nearly broke down in tears after reading it" and B) sensibly tackled the new ASPE study that revealed vanishingly small numbers of black sports editors and columnists. As much as I really, really dislike Whitlock I'd move him down into the 40s because of it if they hadn't been published already. I would remove him entirely if he mentioned that Scoop looks like a muppet.

Whitlock is infuriating because everything he writes seems precisely calculated to be outlandish, outrageous, or controversial. It seems he can't go a month without expressing his opinion that everything that has ever happened is because of racism. Bob Huggins getting fired? Racism. An extension for Charlie Weis? Racism. Everyone hating Barry Bonds? Racism. Distaste for the US basketball team during their run to sixth place in the Olympics? Racism. His placement on this list? Racism, no doubt. Even more infuriating are the less-frequent columns that have the gall to chide others for focusing too much on race. Almost completely round sports columnist who isn't nearly as funny as he thinks he is, heal thyself.

39. Jacques Lemaire

Not satisfied with watching Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow strangle hockey ninety percent of the way to death, Lemaire's Minnesota Wild attempt to finish the job every night with their suffocating nu-90s trap. Lemaire is a main reason that Sean Avery is the only other NFL employee to make this list, having directly caused the death of interesting hockey (and thus indirectly the strike) by riding the same trap to the Stanley Cup at the helm of the New Jersey Devils. Inspired by New Jersey's ability to win games -1 to -2, the rest of the league immediately started boring other teams into submission.

As the evilest of the evil men who kill the interesting bits of hockey for their own personal benefit, he lands at #40.

38. Mike Kryzerzwierskiziziskiywerkski

I don't think of Mike Kryzerwksizi (-ish) as a basketball coach; I think of him as a smug asshole. Okay, so he runs a program as clean as college basketball programs get that's more successful than any other in college basketball and neither of these things are traditionally objectionable, but come on:

Meet Coach K: Leader

	"I don't look at myself as a basketball coach. I look at myself as a leader who happens to coach basketball." - Coach K

MUST FIND. MUST PUNCH. MUST FIND AND PUNCH. On his official website you're invited to "Meet Coach K" not only as a leader but also a coach, father, friend, mentor, motivator, student, and teacher. No doubt Coach K excels in all these roles, as he excels in everything. And if there's one thing people hate more than a loser it's one of those guys who wins over and over and over again and then details his incredible home life, wonderful children, and twelve inch penis. There is nothing about Coach K that's remotely likeable precisely because he is the best human to ever exist. And damn him further for turning unathletic white guys -- normally basketball underdogs that are tremendous fun to cheer for -- into a neverending March scourge.

37. NBA Referees

College referees are vastly more incompetent, but lack the belief that their cranky, elderly asses walk on water. No doubt the reason each and every NBA foul short of a beheading is met with a torrent of bitching no matter the team, time, or place has much to do with the fact that the definition of a foul changes depending on who you are, where you are, and several other mysterious factors including the phases of the moon and just how senile Dick Bavetta feels today. Everyone around the league -- everyone -- acknowledges the existence of a star system wherein your Dwyane Wades get calls that other players simply wouldn't, which makes the NBA seem more scripted than spontaneous at times.

Besides, don't you understand that you're killing Mark Cuban? You're killing Cubes!

37. The Sun Belt Conference

Perhaps if this was a Texas A&M blog the Sun Belt would check in much lower, if at all. But it isn't. The Sun Belt -- previously a conference best known for having a hilariously inappropriate name (hello Moscow, Idaho) -- exploded onto the national scene by totally and irrevocably fucking up the Alamo Bowl. Causing conniption fits across the educated bits of Michigan was bad enough, but the conference compounded its error by attempting to justify the fiasco, releasing a document laden with feeble double-speak, obfuscation, and general LIES LIES LIES.

As a result, Michigan fans have been plugging ULM, ULL, and whatever other half-ass universities comprise the damn thing this year into NCAA 2006, turning the difficulty down to "retard," and ritualistically beating the Sun Belt 2,100-0 since the final whistle went.

The next time you hear a columnist or non-BCS school member whinge about small schools being left out in the cold, remember the Alamo.

35. This Guy

Watch the video; this one is self explanatory. We must find this man and punish him. Not to be missed is the EDSBS evisceration of same.

34. Jim O'Brien

In a tepid effort to be fair to OSU, this nutjob must be mentioned. O'Brien landed Ohio State's basketball program on probation by attempting to pay recruit Boban Savovic thousands of dollars. Ohio State noticed this transgression and sensibly fired the man. Loathesome, sure, but the kicker: O'Brien sued Ohio State for breach of contract.

Kicker part II: he won. OSU's basketball team will be fine, what with Oden and everyone coming in next year, but the nerve!

33. Lou Holth

Not content with driving every thchool he's ever coached thtraight into the loving arms of Mither NCAA Investigationth man, Holth decided he needed to inflict more pain upon the nation at large. The vehicle via which he doleth out the punishment: placement next to douthestache purveyor and fellow list-member Mark May on ESPN college football theth. From this inexplicable perch, Holtz lithpth out incoherent, utheleth analythith with a dazed thmile upon hith face. [/EO hilarious lisping]

Why so high up? Holtz makes me miss Trev Alberts, which is sort of like wondering what happened to the good old days with world leaders like Mao and Hitler. Thufferin thccotath!

32. Alonzo Mourning

It takes an awful lot of work to erase the sympathy one receives when returning from an inexplicable kidney disease that nearly ends one's career, but Alonzo Mourning managed to do it in, oh, about seven days. I'll let this random blogger detail Mourning's epic pouting, lying, and doggin' spree that took him from New Jersey to Toronto and finally to Miami, where he could ride the coattails of Dwyane Wade to an NBA championship ring that he deserves about as much as I do (though to be fair both 'Zo and I deserve one more than Gary Payton). I'll let my own fictionalized version of Hubie Brown summarize:

"You cannot put your hands on another player, but Alonzo Mourning is one of the great assholes we have in this league."

31. George Shinn

Shinn is a man who cares about nothing except lining his pockets with money. He managed to turn baskeball-mad North Carolina against their once-beloved Hornets (they led the league in attendance from 1988 to 1996), then moved the team to New Orleans when Charlotte asked him to cough up a piddling $13 million for an arena otherwise totally funded with public money. Now he's riding New Orleans for money and threatening to move the team again:

Shinn's lawyers have seized upon a contractual clause in the Hornets' 2002 relocation agreement that requires the city and state to build the team a new practice facility adjacent to the New Orleans Arena, the team's fate in the Crescent City appears sealed. The new practice facility would require an $8.5 million minimum public commitment.

You may remember that about half of New Orleans is underwater.* Someone get Chris Paul away from this man before he gets sexually assaulted, too.

*(To stave off the inevitable correction: not really.)

Some Recruiting Notes

The Pittsburgh Sports Report has an interview with WR Toney Clemons:

Clemons said Pitt, Michigan, and surprising contender Akron have impressed him the most so far. With no decision in sight, Clemons is leaving the door wide open for the traditionally late-acting powers of the college football landscape to get involved. Naming Ohio State, Miami (FL), Florida, and Florida State, Clemons said he gets mail from all over, but “an offer would be overwhelming” from one of the big boys yet to get involved.

Probably not deciding soon. I received an email forwarded along from a reader whose brother-in-law has a daughter at Mullen:

Steve Watson Jr.'s pedigree and physical toools have not so far paid off on the football field. Steve Junior is every bit as tall as his dad (6'4") but much more filled out (although I suspect less than the 240 lbs. listed in the article). But I have yet to see Junior show any of the pass catching skills his father honed to perfection with the Broncos. To my knowledge, Steve Junior has not made a game winning catch or even racked up a 100+ yard game, but he sure looks like a football player. Steve Senior has been seen at many Mullen games rooting his boy on and has been something of an informal coach to Dave Logan, the former Cleveland Brown tight end and current coach of the Mullen Mustangs. I have yet to see any of Watson Junior's potential realized on the field. Maybe this year, his last at Mullen. ...

There are two footnotes about Steve Watson Senior you may find interesting. First, Watson's career with the Broncos was shortened significantly when he was hung out to dry on a short pass during the NFL season all the players were on strike and teams were fielded mostly by replacement players and a few NFL scabs who crossed the line. Watson was one of those scabs. Second, Watson's post-playing career as a cohost of the Bronco's after game show ended abruptly when, during the sign-off the night before the gubernatorial election, Watson innocently said something like, "and good luck to Roy Romer." Even though the comment was innocent and Watson was actually a personal friend of Governor Romer, the comment apparently triggered some kind of equal time provision in force and embarrassed the Denver affiliate enough to terminate his contract immediately. It sort of reminded me of Billy Pilgrim's best friend, an American prisoner of war in "Slaughterhouse Five" who was shot by Nazis following the bombing of Dresden for picking up what turned out to be a small Christmas figurine that reminded him of one he had been missing in his house
back home.

A "Slaughterhouse Five" reference == guaranteed inclusion on blog. Sounds like Watson may be more of a project than you might expect a son of an NFL receiver to be. Rivals gave him three stars for that reason; Scout gave him four for the "looks like a football player" bit, no doubt.

The editor of Scout's Oklahoma State site tossed off a prediction that OL Matt Romine, who's very highly touted, will end up at OU. I don't know if that has backing or is just random speculation. CA CB Donovan Warren still lists Michigan but Scott Wolf posted this downer recently:

USC and UCLA are also locked in a battle for Long Beach Poly cornerback Donovan Warren. But a Pac-10 coach recently told me some members of Warren's family want him to attend Ohio State.

Gross! Everyone expects Warren to go to USC anyway. Apparently Michigan led at one point for Minnesota DE Broderick Binns -- who I know nothing about -- and could possibly still be on top according to yet another irritating question headline from GBW.

ESPN's Top 150 was roundly lambasted across the Internets for being dumb; perhaps this is why:

In the six BCS conferences in the 2005 season, just 26 freshmen actually made a significant impact or even got on the field at all. This is a staggering statistic. Despite all the talk about freshmen making an impact early on, the truth is that it is extremely difficult to make the jump from high school to college, and not as many kids are doing it as fast as many think.

Because we do put emphasis on a player's ability to contribute early, the grades for all players naturally become lower -- and therefore more realistic -- when the odds against a player contributing as a true freshman is factored in.

Um... okay. First of all, "odds [modifier] is" ain't proper Englishes. Second of all, universally depressing rating isn't the criticism leveled by annoying recruitniks. Rather, the critcism comes because players that virtually every coach in the country would thoroughly enjoy offering eligibility-maintaining sham classes to are totally absent. When in doubt, Trust The Coaches.

Lion Taming

The Penn State preview drew Avignon-level flak for cynicism and condesencion plus a snide riposte from 50-Yard Lion. This comment caused remorse:

The analysis is fair enough, but could you have possibly been more condescending?

Ouch. That was not my intent but unfortunately was the result. Occasionally in the pursuit of a good line or five the tenor of an article will veer off course. For that I'm sorry. In an attempt to make good, I'll respond to the saner comments and emails I received. First a comment from PSUMike of Hail To The Lion:

I think Morelli is going to surprise a lot of people. Like Lane pointed out, he didn't get on the field much because doing so would have meant benching Michael Robinson, who finished 5th in the Heisman voting. He only got to play during garbage time against Cinn, Central Michigan, and Illinois. His combined stats were 13-20 155 yds 1 TD 0 INT. Not bad considering Joe's tendency to pull in the offensive reins when he's up. He didn't light anyone up but he didn't let them get back in the game either. In the games I saw him, including the spring game, he showed good footwork and confidence. His release was quick and his passes were on time with good armstrength. As good as MRob was, he was horrible throwing the ball. His best passes were when he heaved it up and let his Butler and Williams run under it.

I remain skeptical about Morelli but admit that the evidence against is as flimsy as the evidence for. We must agree to disagree. The season will prove one of us wrong. If it heartens you, given my track record it will probably be me.

Hunt is a good back, but he's not a star. He will churn out 4 and 5 yard gains all day, but he won't break a 50 yd run. But that's all Hall will ask him to do. Keep the offense out of 3rd and long and let the WR's go for the big plays. ...

You're right the offensive line is the big question mark. But then they were the big question mark going into last year too. They weren't great but they weren't bad either. I can't see this group being worse than last year.

Really? Offensive linemen tend to be the slowest developing players on the field other than maybe quarterbacks. Going from four seniors, a junior, and years of starting experience to Levi Brown and four guys who haven't started a game in their lives is going to be a huge dropoff. If Morelli lives up to expectations that will be offset by a much improved passing game, but a tetchy offensive line and the loss of Robinson's 800 yards means that the run game will be hard pressed to come anywhere near its performance of a year ago. If Hunt was the sort of back to make things for himself I could see something effective emerge, but he seems like the kind of guy who needs the hole to be precisely where it's supposed to be.

On defense, we lose three starters on the D-Line, but return Jay Alford who had 8.5 sacks and 11.5 TFL last year. Ed Johnson is returning and should be a force in the middle. I also expect some of their freshmen recruits to step in and make a contribution by the start of Big Ten play. The LB's will be fantastic. I'm glad to see you recognize that.

The DB's are a question. No doubt. They have talent, but they lack experience. Fortunately, you can coach the latter and not the former.

There is still a steep dropoff from Hali to either the journeymen veterans currently in place or freshmen, no matter how highly touted Maurice Evans is. As for the DBs, I'm not sure how much raw talent there is other than Justin King -- and I don't think anyone else does either. The remainder of the secondary had middling guru ratings and was stuck behind Phillips, Lowry et al over the past few years. It could be rough to start.

My prediction is 10-2. We will split the ND and OSU games. Win one and lose one. Don't ask me which but I hope it's ND. God I hate them. I think we will beat you guys. We're due and we're hungry. Penn State is tired of hearing the press tell us you own us. But I think we will slip somewhere along the line and lose to either Wisconsin, Purdue or Minnesota.

I think beating ND is going to be a very tough task on the road with a quarterback getting his first experience against a real opponent. The young secondary and (projected) flimsy pass rush don't match up well against Quinn, Smarjadskazieksa, and company. Obviously PSU has a chance, but I think that's a loss.

As for Michigan, I don't think PSU will be any hungrier to beat Michigan than they were last year or the last seven times they played. A night game at the Beav will be Edmonton-Stanley-Cup-Finals insane, granted, but the game is still played on the field. On said field, I think the Michigan defensive line will give PSU all kinds of problems. Hunt isn't the kind of back to exploit Michigan's dodgy outside linebackers with uncovered bounce-outs. Derrick Williams will be matched up against Leon Hall, who is pretty good. If Henne is on I think Michigan wins -- a big if given last year, granted.

An email from John Uhl:

I don't share all your pessimism about PSU's team and the final results this year, but, hey, you're entitled to your opinion. Your analysis is well researched. What many seem to ignore is that PSU was one of the absolute elite teams (they have played and beaten the best in college football over the years and in bowl games) for a long, long time and then they ran in to some lousy recruiting and coaching decisions which resulted in a horrible 3-4 years. The old man has turned the reins over to some very capable ass't coaches and, well, you saw the results last year. Galen Hall is an offensive genius. Expect very good things from this year's team .They are LOADED with talent on both sides of the ball. AND, attitude! To expect a repeat of last year is unrealistic, but if Morelli hits the ground runnin', who knows.

Hope you're in Happy Valley for the night game with your team. It will be an experience you will NEVER forget. The streak ends this year. Ask OSU what the atmosphere is like. Hell, ask ESPN's Game Day crew.

I did totally overlook the presence of Galen Hall. The PSU offense did perk up under his leadership and was decent despite having little raw material to work with. His track record at Florida, aside from the rampant cheating, was impressive. If my PSU preview turns out to be exceedingly pessimistic at the end of the year it'll probably be because of that.

Another email from Robert Croumathel, though with fewer comments as I've already expressed my opinion on Morelli and Hunt, etc:

I don't know about the X's and O's, but Morelli has the best young arm I've seen at Penn State in a very long time. No big wind up and slow-motion release. Just three steps back, read, and boom. Honestly, he's got the quickest release I've seen since Dan Marino, which is so important in preventing defenders from jumping the play. If he can learn to look off his receivers, he's got some pretty good guys to throw to, so I suspect the passing game will be fine.

Tony Hunt is a complete back, meaning he can hit the crease with speed and power and also take out a linebacker when required. Yah, we played some weak defenses, but so did everyone else in the Big Ten, as you pointed out. Tony gained over 1,000 yards in the Big Ten, which puts him in some pretty good company. If you watch him for awhile you'll see he runs with heart and toughness, as opposed to Austin Scott, who avoids the contact whenever possible.

The O-line has to grow up quickly, but the strength of our defense will keep us in games. So a 9-win season is very doable, and I think we will lay a beating on ND, as will Michigan.

I bet the Pitt fans are thrilled with the Dan Marino comparison.

One defender you didn't mention is safety Mark Rubin. You should watch for this guy. He was a receiver who broke his ankle in the pre-season last year and missed the entire season. He's been moved to safety, and if he can learn his assignments he will be a terrific safety. He can punish people back there.

Noted, though I think any impact Rubin makes will be next year at the earliest, as he's coming off a serious injury, moving positions, and stuck behind a couple seniors.

One last thing - I've never held anything against Chad Henne, and I don't know a single Penn State fan who does. Sure I was disappointed, and it would've been great if he had landed in the SEC, but after his stellar Freshman season, it was apparent that he absolutely made the right choice.

This I am glad to hear, but obviously you haven't been to BWI. Something about the Internet fanbase that has sprung up around BWI is deeply wrong and there's an unparalleled hatred for all things block M there. Even on places like the OZone there is some underlying respect, heavily cloaked though it may be.

Unverified Voracity: More NCAA Edition

Sorry about the slowdown. Attempting to prepare for the WSOP and get the BlogPoll organized and significantly less crappy to deal with are dual time sinks of impressive stature.

NCAA reviews continue apace: House Rock Built gives it a general thumbs up but says an old problem has not gone away:

The Game Seems to be Very Long-Bomb Oriented: Maybe it's just because I was playing as Notre Dame, but there doesn't seem to be a correction on the oversimplicity in hucking the ball deep

SMQB (@ EDSBS) says same old, same old:

Final verdict: this one unfortunately has few changes from NCAA 2006 and looks like it has the potential to grow boring more quickly than previous versions. Hell, I may not even hit 500 games before NCAA Football 2008 comes out.

Dubious Quality has a comprehensive 360 review that highlights a particular pet peeve of mine:

And on the face of it, NCAA 2007 is missing a ton of features I want in a game. Features like:
--accelerated clock
--sim to end (and a jump-in feature as well)
--in-game saves
--multiple camera angles (there is ONE freaking camera angle in the 360 version)
--ability to watch a CPU vs. CPU game (somebody find the stoned employee who took out this feature, and thanks for screwing us on slider development)

Seriously. How hard is it to give you an option to scrub out the rest of a game that's 49-7 at halftime? My dynasties inevitably die because I just can't stand going through the motions for half the time I'm actually playing the game whether I'm vastly up or down. I think that's the final straw for me: no '07.

You, being a Michigan fan, have probably already read the article wherein Clemson recruit Jamie Cumbie describes Notre Dame's post-commit negative recruiting:

"They were sending me postcards like a month after I committed," said the 6-7, 255-pound Cumbie, who was a first-team Parade All-American. "The only school that tried to keep recruiting me was Notre Dame. It really didn't bother me."

Cumbie said the Fighting Irish coaching staff, led by enormously fat head coach Charlie Weis, also engaged in some negative recruiting on his visit to South Bend, Ind.

"They had a piece of paper, and it broke down advantages and disadvantages. It said Notre Dame was televised every weekend, every Saturday. Then they said Clemson has a horrible education."

Well, House Rock Built has acquired a copy of said letter; you can see enormously fat Charlie Weis' dastardly scribbles with your own eyes.

Okay, Mike, we acknowledge you as hard. So, yeah... Alex Legion's commitment spurred TSN's Mike DeCourcy to pen this love letter to Amaker:

It has become another terrific July for Michigan coach Tommy Amaker. If only every month could be July. If only the Wolverines were not forced to deal with the months of November, December, January and February.

Of course, we already know they're not asked to do anything important in March.

Michigan received a re-commitment this week from guard prospect Alex Legion...Legion had chosen the Wolverines last November, reconsidered in the spring, but now says he's certain he wants to play for Michigan.

For a moment there, I thought he'd come to his senses.

And while this, like claiming a Clemson education isn't exactly the Ivy leagues, is objectively true it seems sort of unnecessary, doesn't it? Either DeCourcy was put up to this by TSN honchos who demand he generate sports-radio style "reaction" or his online dating profile lists his hobbies as "torturing kittens," "eating kittens," and "making fun of men largely indistinguishable from kittens apropos of basically nothing."

(Via the Diag)

Speaking of apropos of nothing: watch the Tour De France tonight. 8PM OLN.

'07 hoops recruit Scott Martin announces tomorrow; according to Chris Balas "all signs point to" Purdue, thus making the potential existence of a mysterious fourth scholarship moot. Also, sophomore Jevohn Shepherd made the Canadian national basketball team, which probably says more about Canada than Shepherd.

Unverified Voracity: Piref Edition; HHYYAAAR

This is too easy, but Lloyd Carr did get a Big Ten ref fired because he only has one eye (hhhhhyyyyyarrrrr!). In situations like this the difficulty is not in coming up with a joke but picking from a panoply of options, but, really, how can you improve on this:

In the spring of 2000, an accident caused him to lose one eye. He returned to his job that season — without informing his bosses of the accident — and contends that in the five years that he worked with one eye — which included officiating two Bowl games — reviews of his work were, “on average, substantially better than the reviews he received in the eight years preceeding the loss of his eye.”

O RLY? Maybe that says less about this pirate/referee and more about the poo-flinging monkeys in charge of these things. This guy had ONE EYE! And NO ONE NOTICED FOR FIVE YEARS! This isn't a discrete tatoo on the small of his back. This is a major vision impediment anyone throwing a football at this particular referee would have immediately picked up upon. And yet his continued employment. This is objectively hilarious to neutral observers, but not to me after the Peko/Bass incidents. No wonder we had the Jim Augustines of the world inflicted upon us.

(Via Deadspin.)

Just call him "Citizen," hopefully. The Wolverine's Michael Spath offers some consolation for the hockey team in the wake of forward recruit Trevor Lewis' defection: hyped recruit Pat Kane is going to college and will choose between BU and Michigan. Kane was an '07 recruit but will accelerate his education and enter school in January, which would make him available for the second half of the season should he choose Michigan... and now there's a scholarship waiting for him.

Unless your Internet connection is under a rock, you're probably aware that yesterday was Christmas In July, AKA NCAA release day. Reviews from mainstream sites are full-body massages to EA, so you might want to monitor The Blog For The Sports Gamer closely over the next few days. Three oft-cranky reviewers stand poised to offer, you know, stuff that actually helps you determine whether it's worth buying or not. They've already started. The 614 also has some first impressions.

I'm '07 free at the moment. I've bought the last two versions of the game and been disappointed there's no difficultly level between "piteously easy" and "scream at the console and then hide the game so you can't play it any more." I'm waiting to see whether that's fixed or not. Also, if I bought it now Blogpollers could kiss goodbye a ballot entry form that's not a giant pain in the ass. So there's that.

I've made my feelings on Frank Deford known already. The man is exactly like Barbaro from his beloved horse racing: the attention paid to him, all of which is wasted, is vastly out of proportion to all reason and everyone, including the subject, would probably be happier if he was just put down. And that was before today's column/NPR piece on luxury boxes at Michigan Stadium. I'm sure you can guess which site he comes down on. He even throws in two totally hilarious parody songs and, like everyone else on the inane side of the debate, greatly overstates the aesthetic beauty of Michigan Stadium:

The Big House is a huge oval, and the luxury boxes, totaling 425,000 square feet, would do great aesthetic violence to the classic old bowl. Since the game-day pieds-à-terre would cost so much to build, it's dubious they can even actually make the university any money -- and that, after all, is the whole purpose of luxury boxes.

Note that Deford buys the "they won't make money" argument from anti-box crusaders hook, line, and sinker, because who are you going to trust, a self-made millionaire who was head of the USOC or some former speechwriter with a six-page website?

The most irritating thing about anti-box crusaders is that they position themselves as the True Defenders of the Michigan Faith when the choice presented is between an egalitarian crowd watching Michigan lose and a crowd locked in desperate class war watching Michigan win. I'll take the class war, especially because I'll be sitting in the same seats either way.

Etc.: Citizen-Patriot article quotes yet another claim from Carr that Antonio Bass was going to be a major part of the offensive game plan this fall; Burnt Orange Nation considers the Michigan talent gap or lack thereof (RTWT); SI/Athlon's Michigan preview says some things but this is the big conclusion: "Mental toughness and leadership will be especially critical this season when the Wolverines face traditional rivals Notre Dame, Penn State and Ohio State on the road." Way to go out on a limb, kids.

.....And don't click here.

What The Hell?

Right. Alex Legion is once again a Michigan commitment. Time to go scrub the archives of any nastiness about him... okay doublechecking displays snide comments about Amaker, a tendency to be creeped out about Tim Green, and buckets o' despair but nothing nasty. Celebrate restraint!

Legion's shocking de-un-re-commit will wrap up guard recruiting for '07. Michigan has Grady, Harris, and Legion ready to come in, knock on wood. There has been speculation that a fourth scholarship may be available but that's hazy at the moment. Any such existing scholarship would be earmarked for a post.

Um, like, good job Amaker.

The Most Loathsome People In Sports: 41-50

So, yeah, this is a ripoff of the annual NY Press nastiness.

50-41: The Merely Annoying

50. Me

For putting this list together. What a bitter, jealous, lonely, unsuccessful person I must be.

49. Bill Simmons

Unlike most of the howling masses of the blogosphere, I don't HATE HATE HATE Simmons, but good lord the man has gotten irritating over the last year. Some of that is merely familiarity with his work breeding contempt -- Rocky references just don't have the same punch they used to -- but most of it is his nigh-constant self-aggrandizement. Ok, Bill, you invented the "running diary" and it's very gracious of you to not get angry when other people ape your unique format, but don't you think that's a lot like taking a bottle of whiskey and inventing "whiskey in a glass"? We're not exactly talking calculus here, and even that was independently invented by two guys.

48. Christiano Ronaldo

No doubt he's being furiously scribbled in at #1 on the British analogue of this list, but since America won't see him for another four years he's stuck down here. Ronaldo symbolizes everything that the US hates about soccer: diving, whinging, pouting, infinite useless stepovers, and ridiculous greasy hair. He was the worst offender on a Portuguese World Cup team that inspired hundreds of "Beautiful Game Turns Ugly" headlines in every language from English to Esperanto. It would have been justice if Rooney's errant foot had struck home on Ronaldo.

47. SportsJournalists.com

A heaping hill of unknown losers stringing for prep tee-ball and Jason Whitlock, SportsJournalists.com overflows with riveting topics like the irrelevancy of the Internet, the charms of towns that had a horse until they ate it, and people wondering whether or not they're making more than minimum wage. They're the only group on the Internet more self-congratulatory than bloggers.

46. Jenn Sterger

Okay, we get it: your fake ta-tas and faux lesbianism bring all the boys to the yard. No doubt Myron Rolle will get an outsanding education from you sooner or later. But what separates Jenn from thousands of other nubile young sorostitutes across the country? Nothing except front-row seats at Florida State games and an exhibitionary streak unusual even for hos. Why, then, is Sports Illustrated running an advice column "by" her? And why won't she respond to my emails?

45. NFL Owners

For many reasons, but primarily for confirming once and for all that their idea of fun is a Soviet one by cracking down on touchdown celebration impresario Chad Johnson. Thanks for giving Johnson's various props, dances, and signs a patina of outlaw cool, but maybe the stick in your collective ass could be whittled into something less all-encompassing.

44. Colin Cowherd

A blogospheric persona non grata after the MZone incident, Cowherd manages to combine stupendous ignorance with a propensity for ALL CAPS EMAIL that marks him indelibly as one of the internet retarded. Probably wouldn't have made the list without the plagiarism but his sins go so much deeper than that. Ask Fire Joe Morgan:

I wish I could convey his strained, howling voice...the condescending way he makes his points, as if he were speaking to a four year-old...the way his arrogance and self-assuredness positively oozes through one's car speakers as he blathers on.

43. Dennis Rodman

JUST GO AWAY.

42. Sean Avery

The NHL has a rich tradition of employing little hateable bastards, but Sean Avery takes it several steps too far. Avery's no-class on-ice demeanor extends to his daily life, whether it's blithering on like he's not two steps away from one of those Geico commercials with the cavemen during the lockout about lies, calling the NHL's French Canadian players visor-wearing nancyboys or terming Edmonton Oiler Georges Laraque a "monkey." No-talent midget Avery is the NHL's most hated player, which is saying something.

Add in his inexplicable success with primo Hollywood ass like Elisha friggin' Cuthbert (@ right) and a list without Sean Avery is no list at all.

41. Joe Theismann and Paul Maguire

Who was stupid enough to recreate "The Odd Couple" and pair them as color announcers for nationally broadcasted football games? Well, the same man who was stupid enough to hire Stephen A. Smith, but more on both of them later. Theismann and Maguire -- the nation's foremost argument against gay marriage -- expend more energy needling each other than paying attention to the game. On their own, they're annoying, but together they form a Voltron-like vortex of suck that threatens to consume any who stumble across the critical late-season Lions-Browns matchup.

The moderately good news is that these two tools no longer have to sit in close proximity to each other for three hours at a time every week; the bad news is that now they're split up it's that much harder to avoid them. The spectre of Maguire now haunts college football. Pray for us.

Yes, Virginia, Santa Claus Could Exist In The Future

Over the past week I've gotten a few emails that deserve responses in full; a couple are irritated Penn State fans who will get their say in a couple days. The other is from Don Hamm and is reproduced below with fisk comments (but friendly-like) interspersed:

Brian:

I'd be curious about your take on CFN's All-Americans relative to the supposedly top-5 talent at Michigan. There is a notable lack of Michigan players on the list, and the only one meriting even an honorable mention is Hart.

Omission from CFN's list doesn't bother me so much. As I've written in the past, CFN is useless. They try to churn as much "content" out as possible in order to generate hits -- Orson has characterized this as "heavily caffinated Fiutak sitting in his basement pumping out copy" or some such thing, though he found it endearing instead of annoying -- and toss lists out that reuse the same banal capsule text every day, because there's nothing that gets the fan linkage like "love" from some ridiculous website. It's impossible to take anything they say seriously when every other word is "consistency," "nasty," "athletic," or another sports-cliche word employed to fill space without actually communicating ideas.

So, yeah, I take that particular omission with a grain of salt.

Your larger point, though...

Being a UM fan has its frustrations, many of which you write incisively about. One of them for me is the alleged talent at UM that's relentlessly hyped by UM fans everywhere. Every year I hear fan after fan assert that "Michigan has more/as much talent than anyone in the country", which is then used to buttress the analysis of Lloyd Carr as an incompetent coach whose staff can't develop the truckloads of NFL-caliber talent they recruit. I remember clearly hearing a caller to WTKA saying after the game last year that UM has better talent at every position on the field, both offensively and defensively, than Wisconsin. All he could point to are the recruiting rankings, which I am viewing these days with great suspicion. Of course, he then went on to lambaste Carr & Co. as dumb meatheads who can't coach the 5-star talent they've got at every position.

...is a fundamental, difficult one that deserves an airing. Michigan, like Notre Dame, has found itself in a weird limbo in the last several years wherein expectations vastly exceeded results. (Michigan's limbo has been far shorter and less severe.) The response from the fanbases has always, always, always been to crucify the coach for his many failings.* The idea that our valiant warrior-poets are just plain bad at football never seems to cross the mind of the fan, because good God, how do you fix that? Any idiot can fix the coaching -- run more! pass more! -- but acknowledging the many and variegated flaws up and down the roster is the kind of thing that sinks future seasons. Humans naturally shy away from information that causes pain, so every unproven who-dat is a future All-American.

As a result, "Team X which incidentally is the team I support has as much talent as anyone in the country" is not a phenomenon unique to Michigan fans. Most fans overrate their team's prospects every season, then blow up at the meathead coach when the results do not conform to their impossibly inflated expectations. Every year is "the year" for every team across the country -- the year they win the National Championship or go to a New Year's day bowl game or any bowl game or show some signs of life -- until the harsh light of reality sets in for most. The easiest thing to do at that point is lash out at the coach, because you can fire the coach.

A balanced perspective of available talent is the least likely thing for any passionate fan to have. How do we work towards this?

*(And yes, I am just as if not more guilty than the next fan in this area. A Jake Long-less Michigan line at the beginning of '05? Well that sounds pretty good, let's give it a 4/5!)

While it's certainly not the only measure, to me the most telling measure of real talent (encompassing things both mental and physical) is how the professional scouts in the NFL regard it on draft day. And it's on this basis that I've been questioning this assessment of UM talent as being so superior to the teams they play. Note that I'm NOT saying that UM has no talent; I'm simply saying that our alleged talent superiority is just that: alleged.

Here are the draft-day results for the 03, 04, 05, and 06 NFL drafts for 5 Big Ten schools:

Iowa: 17 players selected
Purdue: 15 players selected
Wisconsin: 19 players selected
Ohio State: 31 players selected
Michigan: 16 players selected

Call me crazy, but I just don't see any evidence of the vaunted superiority of UM's talent, especially in comparison to Senator Tressel's bunch.

The NFL draft is not always the best measure of college talent, but it is a fairly good indicator of which players are the most physically dominant. A raw count over four years leaves a lot out. Let's do eight, which encompasses the entire Carr era, and give points based on draft position.

Edmonton Oiler fans often kick around charts like so...


...that clearly indicate an exponential relationship between pick placement and major-league success. The NFL has institutionalized such knowledge in the famous value sheet teams use when swapping picks back and forth; on it the first pick in the draft is six times more valuable than the first pick in he second round. So let's do this right: teams get points equal to the value on the sheet for draft picks. ... and holy God, that's a lot of calculator work. Plus the different values NFL teams place on certain positions -- centers hardly ever go in the first round, for instance -- could make the calculation even harder. I'll take a raincheck on it, but I can tell you that by eyeballing it that OSU would finish first by a wide margin, Michigan would be comfortably second, and then the other Big Ten contenders would trail the Big Two.

Perhaps in that light the streak against Ohio State makes some sense, but I believe that the NFL numbers, even in the four year period cited, show something of a talent edge for Michigan. But not a large enough one to warrant that sports-talk radio stupidity from above. The sad truth of the matter is that if the NFL metric is accurate, 9-3 is the record Michigan fans should expect and talk radio should be full of dudes saying "well, it was a good try."

Now I know that many would reply by saying, "well, UM has the talent, but they just don't know how to develop it at all." I have my doubts about certain aspects of the UM coaching staff; I don't have much confidence in the o-line coaching at the moment, and I think it's pretty clear our S&C is behind the times. The problem I have with the "Carr can't coach and develop" theme is that the logical result of this assessment is that UM would have relatively few players drafted, which is not the case. We simply don't have the superiority that so many allege.

Taking it further, I'm convinced by things I read on draft day and after that a big reason that UM does not have a draft-day superiority (and recent success against bowl teams and OSU) is very simple: speed. Maybe this is an indictment of Gittelson, but if there is any one physical attribute that is least improvable by coaching I would have to think it's speed. Every year you read about some 220 lb freshman somewhere who after 3 years is a 295 lb behemoth at right tackle, but I don't think any S&C guy is going to turn our typically ponderous linebackers (Prescott Burgess comes to mind) into legit 4.7 demons. Marginal improvements maybe, but that's it. Why else was Jarrett Irons not even able to last through an NFL training camp? Why did Marquise Walker not make it? What's the knock on Jason Avant? Why has Ian Gold made it, by contrast?

Here's a contrarian theory that I'll offer to have knocked down: Lloyd Carr is greatly OVER-rated as a recruiter of true talent, especially with regard to speed and quickness. Meaning that he's UNDER-rated as a game-day coach. I'm not saying he's actually one of the best 10 in the country, but that he's not the clueless dope so many say he is.

Well, to some extent I agree. The vast talent gap Michigan is supposed to have does not exist. The talent advantages Michigan has against Iowa and Wisconsin are incremental at best. And clearly Carr has some idea what he's doing: blah blah blah National Championship blah blah winning percentage blah.

However, a brief survey of Michigan horrors over the past few years shows losses decided by horrible special teams play, horrible late-game performance, and plain horrible luck. A speed deficiency never seemed to be the problem except in very specific cases, e.g. Markus Curry versus Keary Colbert or Vince Young versus Anybody. Michigan's losing streak against OSU seems directly attributable to getting our asses kicked on the lines -- something like 2.0 yards per carry for Michigan over the past two years while OSU was busy grinding out 99 yard drives in '04 -- and the similarly disappointing results against Notre Dame have been due less to overwhelming speed and more to plain old idiocy, bad luck, and the general bloody-mindedness of the universe. After all, one of the trademarks of Michigan football for the past decade or so is that there is always one utterly terrifying receiver on the field. He's 6'4", runs like a gazelle, has arrogance issues, &c. Is that not emblematic of team speed?

I might agree that we've been lacking speed on defense, but was Zach Kaufman's problem speed or general crappiness? How about Todd Howard? Or any safety we've put on the field for the past five years? (Engelmon/Barringer/Adams/Harrison evaluations still pending.)

As for Carr, his extreme stubbornness loses Michigan games. One would think that Carr would pull the plug on Wacky Iowa Punt Formation after the first two or three attempts were nearly blocked. Surely after the first actual block. But no: it took a second blocked punt and a humiliating loss for Carr to scrap it. Similarly, his loyalty to crappy coaches (Herrmann), crappy players (Massey), and crappy pooch punts has cost Michigan for years. The coaches put the defense in a position to fail time and again this year and then acted surprised when they failed.

A final example: UM won the Big Ten title in '03 and played a clearly superior and dominant USC team in the Rose Bowl. In truth, the game wasn't as close as the score, but we certainly were far more competitive than Oklahoma was a year later against USC.

Yet we were able to do all this with three senior defensive lineman (Heuer, Stevens, and Bowman) and one sophomore (Massey), none of whom even got a whiff on their draft days. I read some pre-draft scouting reports on Bowman and Heuer, and it was clear these guys were going to have a tough time landing free-agent spots, let alone get drafted. Yet somehow UM was able to win 10 games, and if it wasn't for our special teams meltdowns against Oregon and Iowa (perhaps thanks to Lloyd's inexplicable selection of the thoroughly unqualified Boccher as ST coach) we might have gone into the Rose Bowl undefeated.

So tell me how I'm wrong and that our talent really is 5-stars across the board. Maybe fodder for one of your articles?

All college teams not named after prophylactics have guys like Heuer, Stevens, Bowman, et al, who have no chance in the NFL but are able to not suck enough so that players like Braylon can bash some heads. That's where the NFL draft anaylsis falls short: it's one thing if those guys are Bowman and Heuer -- competent -- but another entirely if they're Massey or Courtney Morgan. This is where I think a large portion of Michigan's talent advantage lies in most years: they never have to put Jaren Hayes on the field. It was the 2005 team's misfortune to have three Hayes clones start (Henige, Lentz, and Massey) plus one guy who spent the year transforming from Optimus Prime to Hayes at random (Henne).

The Jaren Hayes effect combines with game theory errors I believe Carr makes on a regular basis to lend hope that in a couple years when some hot young thing is the new Michigan coach, there will be reason to move the expectation baseline away from 9-3. But of course I think that: I'm a fan.

I throw the question open to any and all commenters and bloggers: is Michigan's talent advantage overstated? What is a reasonable expectation for the team this year and in any given year? Will that expectation rise if some dreamy new coach takes the helm?